


Ending

by Amethyzt



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Memori - Freeform, Oneshot, murven - Freeform, the 100 season 5 speculation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:59:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyzt/pseuds/Amethyzt
Summary: He’s aware he’s as messed up as they come. He’d told Jaha the truth that night when he tried to get him to swallow that damn chip. Pain, hate, envy—those were the ABC’s of him.One-shot ft. the three women whom John Murphy loses, and one who comes back.





	Ending

John Murphy sees the exact moment he loses her.

He’s just turned 10 years old. His birthday went unnoticed yesterday—no extra rations, no badly sung happy birthday tune to wake him up, no kiss atop the head or extra tight hugs. His dad had been really good at those.

He cried into his pillow last night and wished she could hear him. He wished she would’ve, for just one second, snapped out of it and remembered he missed his father too.

His mother is still slumped over their small kitchen table, a glass full of a clear strong-smelling liquid just out of her reach. Her hair is unkempt, still wrapped in a haphazard bun at the nape of her neck. She doesn’t move a muscle as Murphy reaches around her to grab his school bag. It’s Monday, and he will be going to class without breakfast again.

He walks the Ark hallways with his head down. He hears the whispers from his teachers. _Let him be, he just lost his father._

He’s fallen really behind in his math and science classes. After being out for a month due to his flu, the material seems to have gotten even harder. His mom was really good at both subjects, but she hasn’t been able to help him lately. It seems she’s always asleep or crying. He knows he’ll never catch up.

Reading is okay. He likes hearing Ms. Barker read aloud.

At the end of school, he trudges back home, his hands in his pockets. He wonders if his mom will still be sleeping, or if maybe—just maybe—she’ll have dinner ready for him today. Maybe she woke up today and realized she forgot his birthday and will want to make it up to him. Maybe she’ll have even gotten him something sweet.

Murphy opens the door to his home. It’s not what he expected.

His mom is no longer at the table. She’s sitting on the floor, legs splayed and covered in a pool of what smells like vomit, yellow and runny. Murphy covers his nose instinctually.

“Mom?”

He comes closer, slowly. He grabs a washcloth from the nearby kitchen sink and holds it out to her. His toes are just out of reach of the foul-smelling liquid on the floor.

His mom’s eyes meet his, twin blue orbs that match his. Hers are glassy and red. She looks down at the washcloth in his hand and takes it.

She wipes at her face, and meets his eyes again. This time, she cries. Tears stream down her face like an open faucet. She’s mumbling something, and Murphy strains to hear. At first it sounds like she’s apologizing.

“It’s ok,” he says. “There’s always next year.”

She doesn’t stop crying, but she pushes him away roughly. Murphy topples back and lands on his bottom _hard_ on the metal floor.

His mom is craning a finger in his direction. Her eyes are wild, pupils dilated and accusatory as they bore a hole into his face.

“You,” she says. “You killed him.”

 

* * *

 

 

John Murphy sees the exact moment he loses her.

They have been in space for two years and 249 days. He doesn’t belong here anymore and it screws him up to his very core. He’s spent so much time of his goddamn life surviving that being back up here, idle, was killing him.

It reminds him of the time he spent in the lighthouse bunker. The isolation is deafening. It feeds that self-destructive valve of his heart he’s tried to quell in the last couple of years. Not for his sake—he’s long lost. For Emori.

He loves her. But love in the grand scheme of life doesn’t seem that important when it doesn’t have a price to pay. What he loved about being in love was how one person could seem so precious above everything else. It gave him a priority to fight for. Up here? It’s a mere distraction from his boredom.

Murphy doesn’t voice his thoughts to her though. He’s not a complete asshole. He cares about her.

But he’s not in love with her anymore. Having sex with her is methodical, a way to waste time. It lacks the luster of excitement that exhilarated his heart on the ground.

He sees the others become more and more comfortable and soft in space. They feel safe.

Raven is different. He can see she’s just as restless as he is. Birds weren’t meant for cages.

He’s sitting upright in their cot when Emori walks into their quarters. He gives her a cursory glance but says nothing, and she sighs. It’s a sad sigh, long and tired.

She sits at his side, their thighs pressed together. She smells like Ark-issued soap. He misses the grit of her skin against his as they rolled around the dirt on the ground. She’s become the epitome of the very girl he told himself he would never have on the Ark, even tells him to ‘go float himself’ here and there. If it weren’t for the tattoo stretched across her face, he would’ve thought he was sitting beside a stranger.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” she says.

“What makes you think I need help?”

Emori shakes her head, frowning. A dark part of him wants her to cry, to scream, to do something to show that she isn’t complacent with their situation. He wants the fighter that knocked him unconscious in the hot sand, the woman who sacrificed an innocent man to save her own skin.

He’s aware he’s as messed up as they come. He’d told Jaha the truth that night when he tried to get him to swallow that damn chip. Pain, hate, envy—those were the ABC’s of him.

And that was clear as day based on the way Emori was looking at him, like she’d finally seen him for what he was.

“I’m going to go,” Emori says. “I don’t think you should be here when I get back.”

 

* * *

 

John Murphy sees the exact moment he loses her.

He spits blood onto the ground, still catching his breath from the sucker punch to the gut he just took. Raven is gazing wild-eyed at him, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. She’s looking at him, but in his core, he knows she’s thinking of _him._

The guy that stopped the beasts from beating him to a pulp in front of her—who pointed a gun at his own men to get them to stop.

He’s valiant. He’s brave. He’s everything Murphy is not.

Raven’s eyes don’t leave Murphy even as that guys hands unclasp the metal collar around her neck. Murphy can see where his fingers touch her skin and he seethes. Murphy can’t stand the thought of another man touching the skin he’s traced with his own tongue.

There’s not an inch of Raven he doesn’t know. He’s drawn constellations of love bites from head to toe. She’s his and she’s not his.

She makes him want to be better. She feeds the small part of his soul that can be saved.

As soon as that man releases her, she drags herself over to him. Those other men took her brace but she’s as fiery as ever as she brings her face to his, kissing him soundly, blood on his lips and all. He kisses her back like it’s the last time he’ll be able to. It probably will be.

He sees a future flash before him that he’ll never have. He sees her round with his child—a little boy that’s just the perfect stressful and messy combination of them both. He sees them tangled together in a bed covered with furs, a fire casting an orange glow in their bedroom of a small cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Raven pulls away. “Are you good?” she cradles his chin in her hands.

“Fine,” he replies, and her attention diverts to the man standing over them. A cloud of imminent destruction of the bubble they’ve created in space.

“Thank you,” Raven says.

“Don’t mention it,” Zeke says. “This isn’t the way.”

Murphy hates him even more. He would kill all the people in this goddamn prison ship if it meant saving her. There’s no one he cares about more in this life at this moment. It’s unfair to her, but he feels like she’s his last thread linking him to salvation.

Without her, he’s just a damned man destined to destroy everything in his path—including himself. And yet, he wants her to leave and save herself. He’s not worth anything.

Zeke leaves them for a few minutes and returns with Raven’s brace. He asks if he can help her, and to Murphy’s surprise, she lets him. Murphy glares as Zeke’s hands trail up her calf with care. He watches as they exchange a look, as Zeke’s hand lingers just a little too long at the last clasp of her brace.

 

* * *

 

He’s not worthy of redemption anymore and yet, there she is.

She appears from the trees like a mirage. At first, he thinks he must have died in the final battle. Then, he realizes the pain he feels at seeing her is too strong and delicious for him to be in hell.

She settles in the grass besides him. They’ve won the war, but at a cost. Unspoken words weigh heavily between them. He wants to apologize, to tell her he loves her, to tell her to leave him, to tell her to stay.

Wordlessly, she takes his hand. He looks at their intertwined fingers. She feels like home if he ever had one.

“You’re a fool,” she says to him. “You know that?”

He nods. “Among other things.”

She leans her head into his shoulder. For a moment at least, he’s at peace.

She stays.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I've always wanted to write a fic like this, and the season 5 trailer plus the interviews with Richard Harmon that have been posted online in the past few weeks gave me the inspiration I needed. While my other fics tend to focus on Murphy's good qualities, I wanted to dive into his darkness--which I think we'll see a lot of in season 5.
> 
> Also, title is inspired by Isak Danielson's song "Ending."
> 
> Left it open-ended as to the final woman on purpose! I'd love to hear who you pictured. Thanks for reading!


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